network simulation software

Looking for some advice for network simulation software. I'm looking at Boson, $179 for the CCNA version. I know having hardware would be better, but its not an option right now.

Thanks for the help

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peanutnoggin

Check out GNS 3/dynamips... a quck google search should get you on the right path. That's free and its a router emulator. HTH.

-Peanut

mikej412

Check my posts in this thread for simulators: http://www.techexams.net/forums/ccna-ccent/52873-ccna-lab-simulator-needed.html

If you shop (and get some good deals on shipping) you can build a real cheap hardware CCNA lab for around $200

rogue2shadow

If you were ever a member of the Cisco Networking Academy, you should have the ability to become an Alumni and have access to all your old courses as well as Cisco's Packet Tracer. It's similar to GS3 but for me easier to use

notgoing2fail

rogue2shadow wrote: »

If you were ever a member of the Cisco Networking Academy, you should have the ability to become an Alumni and have access to all your old courses as well as Cisco's Packet Tracer. It's similar to GS3 but for me easier to use .

Does PT support L2 switches? I know that GNS3 support for L2 kinda sucks..

In fact, I have GNS3 running right now, just taking a peek at what all the fuss is about.

I have no idea what I'm doing!!!

bermovick

Yeah, PT has switches (looks like layer 3 switches even). I'm not too familiar with either really; I just tinker around with them.

I prefer GNS3 since I can actually connect the virtual routers with my physical routers by bridging my NIC with a loopback adapter. sh cdp neighbors even works through the bridge which is pretty cool.

notgoing2fail

bermovick wrote: »

Yeah, PT has switches (looks like layer 3 switches even). I'm not too familiar with either really; I just tinker around with them.

I prefer GNS3 since I can actually connect the virtual routers with my physical routers by bridging my NIC with a loopback adapter. sh cdp neighbors even works through the bridge which is pretty cool.

Ok so with PT, it cannot connect to your physical network right? Seems kind of limited....

I also wonder if these companies like Boson, are hurting with their simulators with GNS3 and PT out there....

notgoing2fail

This is insane! I configured two 7200 routers and my laptop is heating up! I've never heard the fan work so hard! Wow....

Turned the routers off and the fan basically went back to whisper mode....

again, wow!

bermovick

With GNS3? It's pushing your CPU(s) to 100% running the IOS's. You have to tinker around with idle-PC while running task manager and try to find a value that gives you a decent cpu usage. I've heard opening a console to one of them and going into privileged mode before starting it's idle-pc scan helps.

You have to set an idle-pc for each model; not for each individual router -- for that reason, all my topologies tend to use the same model throughout at the moment.

notgoing2fail

bermovick wrote: »

With GNS3? It's pushing your CPU(s) to 100% running the IOS's. You have to tinker around with idle-PC while running task manager and try to find a value that gives you a decent cpu usage. I've heard opening a console to one of them and going into privileged mode before starting it's idle-pc scan helps.

You have to set an idle-pc for each model; not for each individual router -- for that reason, all my topologies tend to use the same model throughout at the moment.

Oh boy. I was afraid the rabbit hole gets deeper.... I love simulators/emulators, I just don't want to spend too much time learning how to tinker and fine tune them you know what I mean?

At the same time, I'd like to take advantage of software that's out there that can help save my electricity bill....

decisions decisions....

Then there's the issue of GNS3 showing your interfaces UP/UP with nothing plugged into it... LOL....

JSK

As mentioned above GNS3 does not support Cisco switching. The closest option that you have is to take a router such as a 3640 and configure a NM-16ESW module. There are a few videos and articles out on the web that show how to set this up.

Howling Monkey

rogue2shadow wrote: »

If you were ever a member of the Cisco Networking Academy, you should have the ability to become an Alumni and have access to all your old courses as well as Cisco's Packet Tracer. It's similar to GS3 but for me easier to use .

I looked into joining the academy, but they don't have one near me. I wish they offered a distant learning program.

stuh84

notgoing2fail wrote: »

Oh boy. I was afraid the rabbit hole gets deeper.... I love simulators/emulators, I just don't want to spend too much time learning how to tinker and fine tune them you know what I mean?

At the same time, I'd like to take advantage of software that's out there that can help save my electricity bill....

decisions decisions....

Then there's the issue of GNS3 showing your interfaces UP/UP with nothing plugged into it... LOL....

You boot up the router, you wait till all the interfaces are up, you get the idlepc values from the router, you save them. Done.

I'm pretty sure GNS3 has a GUI way of doing that, as ever I point to Dynamips as then you aren't relying on the GUI to configure, you are doing it yourself. If you were to use dynamips, you simply type in "idlepc get R1" then "idlepc save R1", and thats the idlepc value done.

Simply put, if you can learn Etherchannel and Private VLANs and QoS, this kind of thing is child play, just give it a try

Edit: Here we go, quick Google search for GNS3 idlepc brought this up http://www.gns3.net/phpBB/topic24.html?sid=c37adeffef9765c925f5957b072b2cf4

ToddB

I like Cisco network simulator for the ICND1 and 2. Cheaper comes with 250 labs total. It was put together by mr odem himself, just for the ccna.

zerglings

notgoing2fail wrote: »

This is insane! I configured two 7200 routers and my laptop is heating up! I've never heard the fan work so hard! Wow....

Turned the routers off and the fan basically went back to whisper mode....

again, wow!

You have to change the idle-pc values to bring the CPU utilization down. IIRC, I was able to run three or four 7200s using Dynamips/Dynagen on a P4 3GHz based PC with 2GB RAM.

QHalo

Idlepc values are something that you have to tweak a bit. Once you find the sweet spot then you save the values to the net file and you're good to go all the time. When calculating I never have more than one router started and I always bring it to enable mode then do the idlepc get R1, idlepc save R1, stop R1, start R2 and rinse and repeat.

notgoing2fail

QHalo wrote: »

Idlepc values are something that you have to tweak a bit. Once you find the sweet spot then you save the values to the net file and you're good to go all the time. When calculating I never have more than one router started and I always bring it to enable mode then do the idlepc get R1, idlepc save R1, stop R1, start R2 and rinse and repeat.

zerglings wrote: »

You have to change the idle-pc values to bring the CPU utilization down. IIRC, I was able to run three or four 7200s using Dynamips/Dynagen on a P4 3GHz based PC with 2GB RAM.

Hmmm.....

Well I'm kinda shocked about the P4 3ghz part. I had thought that a Core 2 Duo was the minimum which is what my laptop is. But a quad-core was really needed if you wanted to run CCIE labs...? Am I wrong?

I have a bunch of 1U P4's sitting around that I would love to rack up and dedicate to GNS3 if I could. Otherwise I have a spare workstation that's running ubuntu 9.04 that's a Core 2 Duo with 4GIG's RAM.....

stuh84

notgoing2fail wrote: »

I have a bunch of 1U P4's sitting around that I would love to rack up and dedicate to GNS3 if I could. Otherwise I have a spare workstation that's running ubuntu 9.04 that's a Core 2 Duo with 4GIG's RAM.....

Where did you see these minimum requirements? I've never seen them before.

The only issue with the P4s is that as mentioned, you can run 3 or 4, but thats about your lot. Compared to my Mac Pro where I ran 19 (all 7200s) with about 60% CPU utilization.

You would be better off using that spare workstation, and setting the idlepc values. Basically, follow all the guides out there to doing it, and most importantly, read the dynamips/dynagen tutorial. If you do that, you can access the lab from ANYWHERE via CLI, rather than having to the use the GUI interface to do it.

This is one of the main reasons I go on about Dynamips over GNS3, as if you learn it, you can simply open up a terminal, ssh to your home PC from anywhere, and start working on it. With GNS3 you need access to the GUI, which can sometimes be a lot slower than direct CLI access.

burbankmarc

I was able to run about 18 - 20 routers on a q6600 with 4 gb of ram. That was on windows 7, I was able to easily increase that when running linux.

Not only that but if you don't mind fidling around with some stuff you can get JunOS, and PIX/ASA's running in GNS3.

alan2308

notgoing2fail wrote: »

Hmmm.....

Well I'm kinda shocked about the P4 3ghz part. I had thought that a Core 2 Duo was the minimum which is what my laptop is. But a quad-core was really needed if you wanted to run CCIE labs...? Am I wrong?

I have a bunch of 1U P4's sitting around that I would love to rack up and dedicate to GNS3 if I could. Otherwise I have a spare workstation that's running ubuntu 9.04 that's a Core 2 Duo with 4GIG's RAM.....

That C2D should get you 8-10 routers, and you can also try Dynagen (its like GNS3 but without the GUI), which may allow you to sneak one more in.

You could run 3 or 4 routers on each of the P4's and connect them, but the C2D would leave you in a much better place power-wise. Or go nuts and connect everything up and make a super lab. Either way.

chmorin

rogue2shadow wrote: »

If you were ever a member of the Cisco Networking Academy, you should have the ability to become an Alumni and have access to all your old courses as well as Cisco's Packet Tracer. It's similar to GS3 but for me easier to use .

Packet tracer is limited in terms of routing and real world functionality. GNS3 is limited in terms of switching.

I'd pick GNS3 any day and just have it work with real switching equipment. You can connect GNS3 to any NIC on your computer just as if it was an Ethernet segment.

For CCNA level, packet tracer is all you will need. Above that for advanced routing and switching, you can GNS3 and the real thing.

chmorin

notgoing2fail wrote: »

Hmmm.....

Well I'm kinda shocked about the P4 3ghz part. I had thought that a Core 2 Duo was the minimum which is what my laptop is. But a quad-core was really needed if you wanted to run CCIE labs...? Am I wrong?

I have a bunch of 1U P4's sitting around that I would love to rack up and dedicate to GNS3 if I could. Otherwise I have a spare workstation that's running ubuntu 9.04 that's a Core 2 Duo with 4GIG's RAM.....

You don't need tremendous resources to run GNS3 as long as you make use of idle pc. I'm not seeing why people complain about learning GNS3, it took me a day or so to get a working network that didnt crash, and just a few moments on youtube to help me out. Heck, I even made some videos on how to configure a CCNP lab in GNS3 on youtube. Resources are abundant.

I run win7x64, WinXPx86 in a VM, a lab of 4 routers and a FR switch in GNS3, and it connects to my lab of cheap routers and switches. All my computer is 3.0ghz Anthlon dual core processor, 4GB DDR2 ram, and that is pretty much all you need. Once you get the configurations down, you just saved yourself thousands of dollars. In my case, tens of thousands. Also, because you are using the real IOS (and not the 'fake' IOS packet tracer uses) it leaves you in a decent position to get things working.

However, emulation does have its quirks. With VoIP for example I have a hard time, and am investing with real equipment for that reason. I can get it to work, just not very well all the time. However for CCNA level and below, even CCNP level, GNS3 and a little bit of real equipment will do you just fine.